The Woman Who Ran Into Her Own Shadow - The Price of a Beautiful Lie
A Delhi mother’s escape into fantasy, her fall into darkness, and the son who refused to give up on her
Story: S A Spencer
Author of Popular Fictions: The Pink Mutiny, The Black Waters, Dream In Shackles
The sleeper‑class train groaned through the night, its metal
frame shuddering with every turn of the tracks. Asha sat by the barred window,
clutching the edge of her shawl as if it were the only thing keeping her from
falling apart. Across from her, her son Arjun lay stiffly on the lower berth,
eyes closed but nowhere near sleep. Beside him sat Raghav—her late husband’s
closest friend—silent, watchful, carrying the weight of two years of unanswered
questions.
Asha still couldn’t believe she was going home. Or that she
had a home left at all.
Two years earlier, she had lived in a cramped Delhi flat with
peeling paint and a balcony that overlooked a noisy street. Her husband, Manoj,
would return late every night—shirt damp with sweat, shoulders slumped, eyes
tired but warm.
She would serve dinner half‑heartedly, barely glancing at
him.
He would say, “The boss made me stay back again,” and she
would shrug, scrolling through her phone.
Arjun, then sixteen, would complain, “Ma, the dal’s too
watery again.”
Asha would smirk and say loudly enough for Manoj to hear,
“Well, you weren’t born to a rich father, were you?”
Manoj never snapped back. He would just smile tiredly, pat
Arjun’s head, and eat whatever she put in front of him.
She mistook his silence for weakness. She never realised it
was love.
Her afternoons were spent online—Facebook, Instagram, random
chat apps. That’s where she met Rahim, a smooth‑talking man with a
Muslim name and a profile picture taken in a luxury apartment that wasn’t his.
He told her she was beautiful. Wasted. Too good for a boring husband who didn’t
appreciate her.
She drank his words like a thirsty woman.
Soon she was messaging him late into the night, hiding her
phone under the pillow, giggling like a teenager. She convinced herself she
deserved more. That she was meant for a better life. That Manoj’s tiredness was
proof he didn’t care.
She never asked why he was working two jobs. She never asked
how the school fees were being paid. She only asked why her life wasn’t
glamorous.
When she eloped, she didn’t leave a note.
She took her gold. She withdrew cash from the joint account.
She waited until Manoj was at work and Arjun was at school. Then she boarded a
train to Kolkata, heart pounding with excitement.
Rahim met her at the station, smiling like a promise. He held
her hand. He whispered sweet things. He took her to a tiny room in a slum,
saying it was “temporary.”
In the dim light, he brushed her hair back and told her she
was too beautiful for the life she’d wasted. He cooked for her, played old
Bengali songs, swayed with her in the humid air. He kissed her hands slowly,
deliberately, as if memorising her.
She felt young again. Desired. Alive.
She mistook that feeling for love.
And that was how he kept her blind.
Until the night he sold her.
The brothel swallowed her whole. Two years of fear. Two years
of regret. Two years of remembering Manoj’s tired smile and realising too late
what it had meant.
One of her regular clients—a middle‑aged man who pitied
her—agreed to smuggle out a letter. She didn’t expect a reply. She didn’t
expect forgiveness. She only hoped Arjun was alright.
She never imagined he’d be the one to save her.
The police raid was chaos—shouts, boots, broken doors. She
thought it was another violent customer until she heard her name.
“Ma!”
Arjun stood there, taller, thinner, eyes burning with anger
and love. Behind him was Raghav, panting from the chase. But it was Arjun who
pushed past the officers, who wrapped his arms around her, who held her as if
he’d been holding the world up alone.
Asha never imagined her son would be the one to save her.
“Ma… I found you.”
Now, on the train back to Delhi, she finally asked the
question she’d been too afraid to ask.
“Arjun… where is your father?”
He didn’t look at her. He stared at the passing darkness.
“Gone.”
Her breath caught.
Arjun’s voice was steady, but only because he’d learned to
steady it.
“After you left, he didn’t let me cry. He said, ‘Your mother
must have her reasons. She’ll come back.’ He kept saying it even when he was
breaking inside.”
Asha felt her chest tighten.
“He worked more,” Arjun continued. “Two jobs. Sometimes
three. He’d come home late, cook for me, help me with homework, tell me stories
so I wouldn’t feel scared.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth.
“He told me not to blame you,” Arjun whispered. “He said love
means waiting. He said families don’t fall apart just because someone makes a
mistake.”
Asha’s tears blurred the window.
“But one night,” Arjun said, voice cracking, “he collapsed.
They said it was exhaustion. Stress. He never woke up.”
Raghav looked away, jaw tight. He had been the one who helped
cremate the body. He had been the one who kept Arjun fed. But it was Arjun who
had quit school, taken a job at a mechanic’s shop, and spent every spare rupee
searching for her.
He had grown up in the space where she had disappeared.
“Why did you come for me?” she whispered.
Arjun finally looked at her—eyes older than they should ever
have been.
“Because you’re my mother,” he said. “And because Dad
would’ve wanted you home.”
She broke then—quietly, completely.
When the train pulled into Delhi at dawn, the city looked
different. Sharper. Colder. More honest.
Arjun stepped onto the platform first. He didn’t reach for
her hand.
So she reached for his.
And this time, he didn’t pull away.
📌 AUTHOR NOTE
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